The invention relates to a sputtering target containing a metal oxide as a sputtering material, in which the sputtering material comprises zirconium and titanium as metal.
Such sputtering targets are well-known, for example, from WO 2011/110584 A1 and are used, for example, to produce coatings on glass. Sputtering targets made of a mixture of titanium dioxide and zirconium dioxide are used in this context. However, sputtering targets made of these compositions are associated with a disadvantage, in that they may contain major accumulations of non-conductive zirconium dioxide which tend to cause undesired formation of arcs (so-called arcing) during sputtering. This arcing adversely affects the sputtering process and the quality of the resulting coating.
Another solution is to use sputtering targets made of an alloy of titanium and zirconium. However, this necessitates so-called fully-reactive sputtering in order to produce the requisite oxide layers. This is a difficult process to implement, especially at high sputtering rates or high coating widths. It is therefore the object of the present invention to eliminate the known disadvantages of the prior art.